Pneumatic nail-driving tools are old in the art. They are characterized by loud operation, by substantial recoil, and a limited performance characteristic. Among such devices disclosed in the existing art are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,498,517 to Novak; 3,060,441 to Henning; 3,035,268 to Goldring; 3,060,440 to Pfaff; 3,595,460 to Pitkin. Another such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,008
As a consequence of the limited capability of pneumatic driving devices known to the art most heavy-duty fastener-driving operations are carried out with explosive-actuated devices which are not only time-consuming and expensive to operate, but also which, because of the danger inherent in such devices, require licensed operators. Moreover recoil and noise problems associated with the pneumatic devices are inherent--and usually more pronounced--in the explosive-actuated fastener driving means. The prior art, therefore, has nowhere provided a pneumatic nail driving machine which is useful in heavy-duty, fastener-driving applications, e.g., those applications requiring an input of about 1,250 inch-lbs or more of work to drive the nail into the substrate. And even those pneumatic machines available for relatively light-duty fastening tasks have been excessively noisy, and have had an annoying recoil.
In addition to these problems associated with fastener driving means the art has encountered a further problem relating to the feeding of flanged nails into the driving devices. Flanged-head nail configurations are often required by building code and have heretofore been fed one-by-one into the driving means. These nails generally include a sliding flange which aids in maintaining perpendicularity of the nail which, in addition to being an impact-receiving member, provides a seat for the sliding flange. It is this sliding flange, on being displaced during the nailing stroke, which forms the main portion of the head of a driven nail. Thus, it was desirable to provide improved means for feeding nails to a pneumatic nailing machine.